What in the hell did these assholes want with him?
About an hour after he came out of it, the guy who’d taken him prisoner, the dude with the submachine gun, came over with five men trailing behind him. He was dressed in dirty camo fatigues like the others. He was white- haired, craggy-faced, and seemed to have some sort of bearing that the others lacked.
“You’re awake, eh?”
“Sure.”
“Suppose you want to be set free?”
“I was thinking that.”
The old guy nodded. “I’m Valdez,” he said. “I’m in command here. You’re my prisoner.”
“Okay. What do you want with me?”
Valdez just stood there, staring at him. “You’re Slaughter?”
“Yeah. I been called that.”
“You’re the one that mixed it up with some of us in Wisconsin. Killed a few of us.”
“So now you’ve got me.”
“Now I’ve got you.” He whispered something to one of the other men. “Question is: what do we do with you?”
“What use am I to you?”
“None that I can see. Of course, we could use a guy like you. You could join up with us.”
“The Hand? No, I’m already patched-in with a different club. I don’t flip patches for no one.”
“I suppose I could kill you.”
“Figured you’d get to that.”
“Uh-huh.” Valdez stroked his chin. “We could torture you…but why expend the energy on a booger-eater like you? You’re strong. You’d make a good slave. A good camp boy to do all the shit nobody else likes. But then we’d have to feed you. And, sooner or later, a guy like you would start killing us to get free.”
It was quite a quandary, all right. Slaughter was amazed at how quickly the Red Hand grapevine worked. They must have been watching for him. Now they had him. Valdez was playing games. Slaughter had killed some Ratbags, they wanted payback. They were going to punish him and he knew it, but Valdez was playing his mindgames, acting like he didn’t know what he was going to do when he’d probably made up his mind long ago.
“See, Slaughter, the thing is that I’ve been pretty much ordered to execute you. That comes from higher up, as a favor to other Red Hand units that you put the hurt on. It’s a brotherhood thing…and you understand brotherhood, do you not?”
Slaughter said nothing. He didn’t even bother smiling at the absurdity of such a thing. Brotherhood?
Valdez was going on about how tough it was to be in his position. Like anyone else, he claimed, he had orders to follow from higher up. But then, on the other hand, he had to interpret those orders and make them work in a practical fashion. So, yes, he was told to punch Slaughter’s ticket as a favor to his brothers of the Red Hand (Slaughter tried not to laugh at that), but if he did that he had to do it in such a way that he would not be wasting manpower and resources and his little community would actually get some benefit from it.
“So you see my problem, do you not?”
“It’s tough being on the top.”
Valdez ignored the sarcasm. “What to do, what to do?”
“Just put a fucking bullet in my head and be done with it,” Slaughter suggested. “How much manpower does that take?”
Valdez smiled. He was beginning to like this biker. As opposed to so many of his own men, this guy was absolutely fearless. “Well, that’s a point well taken, my friend. But honestly…that’s so simple and cold-blooded it nearly offends me.”
Slaughter just hung there, his arms numb from the wrists to the shoulder. All he wanted at that moment was to be cut free. If that meant he got a bullet, then so be it. He was starting to think this entire ride was a big zero. Nothing but trouble.
“Wait…I think I have a solution,” Valdez said. He motioned to a couple of his bully boys and they came over, flashing knives. They sliced Slaughter’s bonds and he fell to the ground. It took him a good five minutes to get the feeling back in his arms. But Valdez was a patient man. He had nothing but time. Now that Slaughter was free, the other Ratbags had their weapons on him. They didn’t trust him and Slaughter had to respect that. Because he had been beginning to think how easy it would have been to take a knife from one of these stooges. Just a few seconds would be all he would need. Grab the nearest one, stomp his kneecap and smash his Adam’s apple, take his knife and put it against Valdez’s throat. By the time the other limp dicks got their weapons up, he’d already have their boss hostage.
But they weren’t that dumb.
Once he got his blood going again, Valdez dropped him a canteen and he drank down the whole thing. Better. It swept that fuzzy disorientation out of his skull.
“Better?” Valdez asked.
“Sure.”
“Anything else?”
“I could handle a steak.”
“So could I, my friend. Here. We found these on you. Enjoy.” He tossed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter into the dirt. Slaughter shrugged, picked them up and had a few easy drags. “Okay,” he said. “So what do you got in mind?”
“I’ve come up with perfect solution to our problem. One that will take care of my dilemma, entertain my men, and allow you the dignity of dying like a man.”
One of his bully boys chuckled.
Slaughter waited for it while he finished his smoke. All this high drama for nothing. Valdez had it all planned from the moment they strung him up. Why all the theatrics? Just get to it already.
“You see,” Valdez said, “we are a free-ranging group. Our job is to collect up anything and any
“And I’m it?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Slaughter turned his back on them and had a good long piss. After that, he felt pretty human again save for the stink of zombie gore spattered all over him. But he supposed a shower was out of the question.
“Now that you’re freshened up,” Valdez said, “you’ll take a walk with these gentlemen.”
“Where to?”
Valdez ignored him. “Put him in the cage,” he said. “And tell Benny to bring up Maggot.”
They led Slaughter through the compound at gunpoint. It was a large, sprawling place that looked like part of an old Army base. As it stood, from what he could see of it, it looked pretty indefensible. There were several small encampments enclosed by sandbags and spooled barbwire, but there were great openings in the ramparts that you could have driven a tank through. The wire was old and rusting, the sandbags leaking. A good force could have overrun the entire thing in minutes. He saw scrub forest beyond the perimeter in one direction and fields of high yellow grasses in the other. Perfect cover to mount an attack. As they led him on, he saw that the ground was pitted with bomb craters.
But he didn’t think much at all about it.
He let himself go cool and easy as he always did before a good action or gang fight. It was the only way to do it. Breathe slowly, rest your muscles, stretch your joints. Don’t tense up until you have to. Conserve energy.
